


White Knight

by Grendel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Medievalstuck, Middle Ages, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:05:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grendel/pseuds/Grendel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir Scratch finds a strangely familiar looking orphan girl and decides to take her in. Aradia isn't quite sure why he's bothering with her. Medievalstuck, non-shipping. It's better than it sounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He had no business helping her. He had no business having anything to do with her. There she was, some little wretch, a nameless specter of a girl, staring up at him with huge eyes that were so brown they looked nearly red. And then there was him, a knight in gleaming armor of white enamel, not so tall on foot, but a giant atop his white horse.

He frightened people. He knew that. His face was so blank, so impassive. He seldom smiled or frowned, no matter what his emotions were. And he was utterly devoid of mercy. He would strike down a foe with no hesitation. One command from his Lord and it was so.

But this child was nothing more than a malnourished whelp with a dirty face and a dripping nose, stared right back up at him. No fear. No wariness. She didn’t seem even remotely intimidated.

It fascinated the knight.

He halted, stopping his warhorse to look down at the little peasant girl in the gutter. The rest of the city around them kept right on going, busy and loud, but the knight felt that he and the girl were all alone in their own bubble.

 

She stared at him wordlessly with haunted eyes.

“What is your name, young lady?” he asked. He had an odd voice – colorless, in a way. Quiet enough to be frustrating.

“Aradia,” replied the child, gaze never faltering. Her own voice was soft and oddly hollow, enunciation precise and careful. “What’s yours?” she countered.

The Knight was taken aback, though all that showed on his face was a single pale blonde eyebrow quirking. Nobody asked him for his name. They either knew him by reputation or were alarmed enough by his presence as a whole to know better than to ask.

This child was beneath – or perhaps above – all of that. He though that, perhaps, he might like it.

“…My name is Sir Scratch,” he told the child. If he expected some flicker of recognition, he was disappointed. She didn’t even nod. She just stared at him with those enormous, dark eyes.

Sir Scratch couldn’t quite place it, but this little girl seemed so familiar…

Ah.

That was it.

Interesting.

“Aradia,” he said softly, “Where are your parents?”

“In the ground” she replied, harmonic voice nearly as blank as the white knight’s face.

“I see,” Sir Scratch did not press the issue. He looked over the girl with his pale, nearly colorless green eyes. “Child,” he said abruptly. He had looked and he had seen her dirty face, her matted black hair, her too-skinny arms, her tattered dress hanging two sizes too large for her frame. He had seen this and he had not taken long to make a decision. “Child, would you like to come with me?”

Only a child too trusting or a child with nothing left to care about in the world would nod to that. When Aradia nodded, Sir Scratch suspected her to be of the latter party. Those eyes were too knowing for her actions to be blind faith.

“Very well,” the knight leaned down and offered a hand to the small girl. It enveloped her own dirty hand with alarming ease. In one smooth, swift motion, the knight swung the girl up onto his horse. He sat her in front of him, sidesaddle, here he could hold onto her and keep her safe from a fall.

And so off rode the white knight, he new ward in his lap.


	2. Chapter 2

She never really did understand why he gave her the time of day. He was so much higher than her, so much more important. He needn’t have ever bothered with the likes of her.

But he did. In fact, he went above and beyond bothering with her. He raised her.

From that first day, when he had pulled her onto his horse and delivered her from a world of nothing and less, she had been his girl.

Not his sister. Not his daughter. Not his lover. Ostensibly, his servant. But more than that, somehow. At times, Aradia almost thought she was his protégée. Where she a boy, she would have been his squire. But she was not a boy and each passing year only served to prove that.

As a girl, it seemed that the white knight was unsure quite what to do with her. Especially early on. But Scratch was nothing if not a man of plans, and Aradia suspected early on that he had some of those plans reserved for her.

In the first days, the pair spoke little. He brought her with him to the castle, fed her and bathed her and gave her better clothes. He’d found a bed for her and within a fortnight she’d found a place to sleep in a closet of a room adjoined to Sir Scratch’s apartments.

Shortly after, once the child was stuffed enough, fed to fill the gap between bone and skin, and proven to be free of lice and fleas and the stench of the gutter, her lessons began.

The first lessons concerned service. This is how you stand. This is how to bow. This is how you speak. Aradia was taught how to pour, how to cook, how to launder other people’s clothes and oil other people’s armor. The lessons grew more complicated after this.

Sometimes she thought Sir Scratch was teaching her to be a lady. When she learned to draw, when she learned to dance, learned to sup with the highly born (and [i]not[/i] make a fool of herself), to speak the languages of fans and food and flowers… she asked if she was being prepared to wed some lordling.

“No,” replied Sir Scratch, “There are higher plans for you.” Eventually Aradia took that and thought it a gentle way of telling her she’d never be so important.

Sometimes she thought Sir Scratch was training her to become a knight. When she learned to polish and sharpen a blade, learned to wear armor, learned to fence, to ride a horse like a man and unseat a lancer… she asked if she was to follow in her lord’s footsteps.

“No,” replied Sir Scratch, “You will do stronger things.” Eventually, Aradia took that to mean she was a girl and could never fight in any war.

Sometimes she thought Sir Scratch was turning her into a spy. When she learned to forge a signature, when she learned to read a letter without cracking the seal, to mix three score poisons, to plant a thought into a head with words so sweet one would think the idea had been theirs all along… she knew better than to ask this time. She was old enough now to have learned her lessons.

And all the while, Aradia served her white knight. She poured his wine, polished his armor, cleaned his chambers, washed his clothes. She was his shadow, silent and ever present, the wordless witness to a thousand unspoken lessons.

There were others. Sir Scratch’s men and occasional pupils. Others who came and lingered for a time and then went along their way. A girl with a mean smirk and a patch over one eye who joined in the lessons on daggerplay and poisons, and teased Aradia mercilessly, desperate to provoke her into a fight. Another girl with light hair who only dressed in black and spoke softly to the white knight over thick tomes, who occasionally conversed with Aradia about death. Neither stayed long. It always returned to being her and the knight alone, sooner or later.

She never was quite sure how he viewed her. Once she fell asleep reading in the library of the keep and woke in her own bed. She knew her knight had fetched her. Another time, Scratch sat her before a mirror and brushed her long, ark hair, and told her how fair she was, and what an asset her face was to him. Once, he kissed her full on the mouth but broke away. His face rarely bore any expression, but in that moment Aradia thought it looked almost regretful. He never did it again, either way.

One afternoon the two were in Sir Scratch’s tent at a tourney. All white, his canvass, trimmed in a green lighter than line-shaded. He had unseated half a dozen men that day, and now Aradia helped him remove his plates and mail.

She was sixteen then, by Sir Scratch’s best guess. She had been with him for nine years. Longer with than without. Long enough for her to ask the unvoiced.

“What was I?” Aradia had a quiet voice, sweet and subdued. It might have rung melodic, had she had much of a chance for song and feeling in her life. But somehow it always turned out merely hollow. She didn’t explain her question any further. She didn’t need to.

“An orphan,” replied the colorless man in his colorless voice, “A gutter brat. A magnet for mud. The victim in waiting of the next mad dog, brothel, or particularly large rat.”

That answer seemed to satisfy Aradia. Her small hands slipped between the lobstered plates of Sir Scratch’s armor to find the buckles. “What would I have become?” she asked as his shoulders came away.

“A meal. A thief. A serving girl. A whore. The wife of a baseborn tradesman.” Sir Scratch extended an arm as Aradia pulled away his bracers.

She knelt to see to his shin plates. “What will I become now?”

The knight thought for half a heartbeat before responding. “A warrior. A witch. The handmaid of a fine lady. The bride of a Lord’s bastard third son.

So many options. So many possibilities. If Aradia approved or disapproved, her face betrayed no thought. He’d taught her well.

“And why…” there was a second of hesitation, “…did you choose me?”

The thing was said. The tent was silent. The armor was off. No one made a sound.

“You…” Sir scratch’s hesitation reflected Aradia’s, “…remind me of someone.” It was the most honest thing he had ever told her.

Scratch drew back to look at his ward. The teenager was eye-level with him. Funny how she had once seen him as the largest force in her tiny world, and yet had grown and discovered him to be so short. Even short men could cast long shadows, though. And the same might be said for slight girls.

“Aradia,” he said at last, “Don’t be a handmaid.” There was the strangest smile on his pale, thin lips. “You can do better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you it was better than it sounded.


End file.
